Many optometrists do not recognize when someone needs vision therapy. In fact, a person with vision problems often passes an eye exam. This happened with my son, and we did not realize it until one of his teachers suggested we check into vision therapy.

Elements of Vision Therapy

Before a patient begins vision therapy, an eye therapist does an assessment. Then, a doctor specializing in vision-related problems reviews and interprets the results. He creates a treatment plan with goals and expectations. Next, patients attend in-office therapy. Patients also have tasks to complete at home.

This process works well for our spiritual lives too. It can correct and prevent vision-related spiritual problems like double-mindedness, lack of or wrong focus, and absence of alertness that plague our spiritual lives.

Elements of Spiritual Vision Therapy

The basics serve as a vision evaluation for our spiritual lives. They include regular fellowship, daily Bible study and prayer. These create the core of our spiritual health. Stopping regular practice of any of these habits leads to blurred spiritual vision and even blindness. (Colossians 4:2, 3; Acts 2:42)

Consultation with a seasoned saint provides the insightful observations to help adjust spiritual progress. In addition, regular accountability keeps our blind spots from creating havoc. Talking out problems is often all that’s needed to find a solution. (Galatians 6:1, 2)

Expert advice comes through a variety of sources. Some struggles need the experienced vision of a pastor or Christian counselor. Regularly reading Christian books also provides preventative as well as problem-specific advice.

Practice involves not just taking in the Word and hearing from God, but also “going into all the world” and practicing what God plants inside of you. (Mark 16:15)

One final connection between vision therapy for the eyes and spiritual vision therapy lies with the power of choice. Individuals must decide whether or not to participate in the recommended therapy. The eye doctor makes the vision therapy plan clear. God also makes the plan of action clear for preventing spiritual vision problems. Both require commitment and follow through vision to improve.

When a child under performs due to one or more vision-related deficiencies, they have a vision-related learning problem. These problems often get misdiagnosed as ADHD, behavior problems and/or reading disabilities. This happened with our youngest son. Fortunately, a 3-month eye therapy program corrected these deficiencies.

The following points teach about common vision-related learning problems. They also help illustrate some of the common reasons for vision problems in our spiritual lives.

Convergence Insufficiency

Convergence Insufficiency involves eye-teaming skills, or the ability to coordinate both eyes together. Symptoms include eye strain, fatigue, poor attention and reading avoidance from words overlapping and causing double-vision. Many kids with this problem don’t know what they are seeing isn’t normal and say nothing about the problem.

James 1:8 says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Just like convergence insufficiency leads to struggles with confidence in reading, spiritual double-vision leads to avoidance of obeying God’s will. Like waves of the ocean, a double-minded man is unpredictable and even destructive.

Accommodative Dysfunction

Eye focusing skills, such as the ability for sustained reading and shifting focus from near to far, fail to function properly with accommodative dysfunction. Symptoms include miscalling easy words, headaches, tiring easily and poor attention and concentration when reading. Accommodative dysfunction results in the inability to focus and results in blurred vision.

The Old Testament gives numerous examples of what happens when focus moves off of God. Psalm 1 also get at this idea as it relates to the type of people we spend time with on a regular basis. Blurred vision in our spiritual lives leads to fatigue at every level, inability to hear God, and failure to focus when do hear Him.

Occulomotor Dysfunction

Occulomotor dysfunction involves eye tracking skills, which involve the ability to point eyes to printed material and then move them from word to word. Symptoms include losing one’s place easily, needing a finger to keep one’s place when reading, slow reading, poor fluency and comprehension, inability to pay attention and difficulty copying words. With this dysfunction, words appear to jump around on the page.

Luke 21:36 addresses constant alertness and paying attention. We don’t know the day or the hour of Christ’s return. Failure to be alert results in wandering outside of God’s will, inability to pay attention when God speaks, and struggle copying the example set for us. We jump around in life without focus or purpose as we overlook the work God gives us.

Vision-related learning problems affect more than just reading. They compromised my son’s ability to properly socialize, to keep focused in and out of school, and to enjoy much of life in general. Vision-related spiritual problems impact our spiritual lives in similar ways by negatively affecting relationships, stealing focus, and robbing joy.